A few tips to help
your move with Nationwide go more smoothly

Shipping furniture or packing boxes?

Whether you are shipping furniture, boxes, or other items with us, you should know that over 50% of our customers add items to their shipment after our packers arrive at their home and they see the quality of our work. If you choose to add items to your order, there will naturally be additional shipping charges. Our personnel will call the main office before leaving your home to find out what those additional charges will be. We want to make sure that our customers are well informed and never feel as though we have told them of any charges after the shipment is already under way. If you know that you want to add items to your shipment before we arrive at you home, please call the office so that we can plan ahead for the extra room needed on the truck to accomodate everything safely. If you have questions about the shipping cost, or the cost to add additional items to your shipment, call us anytime.

Boxes:

At Nationwide Delivery Systems we do everything we can to protect your items during shipping to ensure that they arrive in exactly the same condition as when they left your home. However, we ask you to help us keep your items safe by packing your boxes properly.

You should always keep in mind that the boxes will be stacked on top of each other inside the truck during shipping. If your boxes are packed improperly, they may crush, damaging items inside. Here is what you can do to help prevent this from happening:

Fill boxes to the top before shipping
~ Empty space inside the box will make it crush easily.
~ Towels, pillows, sheets, etc. make good filler.

Do not make boxes too heavy
~ Heavy boxes are more likely to crush those below during shipping.
~ Small and medium boxes should weigh no more than 35lbs each.
~ Large boxes should weigh no more than 45lbs each.
~ Overweight boxes may be subject to additional charges.

Spread out heavy items for shipping
~ Books, magazines, and other heavy items should be divided up between your boxes.
~ If heavy items need to be put in the same box, make it a small box and stay within the 35lbs per box limit.

Clearly mark crushable boxes before shipping
~ Boxes with lampshades and other lightweight items are often difficult to make crush resistant. Mark these boxes clearly with notes like, “LAMP SHADES”, “BOX WILL CRUSH”, or “TOP LOAD”.

Pack smart
~ Don’t put heavy items on top of glass or china.
~ If fragile items are on the very bottom of a box, include padding under them.
~ Don’t pack clothes, sheets, or towels in bags, especially trash bags. These items should always be shipped in a box or suitcase.

Shipping Furniture:
Whether you are shipping new, sturdy furniture or fragile antiques, the following tips apply.

Always empty furniture before shipping
This is the most important thing to remember when shipping furniture with any company. Filling furniture with pillows, or other light, non-fragile items is acceptable, but if furniture is filled with heavy items it greatly increases the risk of damage. During shipping, furniture will be lifted, tilted and sometimes placed on the side or back for careful carrying. Furniture, especially antique furniture, is not designed to be moved while full and damage could be the result. Therefore, our drivers will ask you to empty your furniture if it is filled when they arrive. This is our way of helping ensure that furniture is never harmed during shipping. Please be safe and don’t ship your furniture with items inside.

Point out particularly fragile areas
Nationwide personnel always wrap everything with great care, but you may be shipping furniture with a loose leg, broken hinge, cracked marble, or other particularly fragile area that may not be immediately visible to the men packing your furniture. If this is the case, please point out these areas so that the packers can make a special effort to reinforce, label, protect, or otherwise treat these areas with extra care during shipping.

Inform packers of any removable shelves
When shipping furniture, please tell the drivers if a furniture piece has removable shelves. Drivers will always check for loose shelves, but it is not uncommon for removable shelves to become wedged in place over time and the drivers may think they are permanently installed. Of course, no one wants to see these shelves come loose during shipping and damage the interior of the furniture. Please take the time to point out any removable shelves or other removable interior features of your furniture.

Don't tape furniture closed before shipping
Many people prepare their furniture for shipping by taping lids shut and table leaves in place. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst things you can do to your furniture. When the tape is removed after shipping, it may pull off the furniture's finish or the glue on the tape may react with the finish, permanently changing the color. Nationwide personnel will completely wrap the furniture with blankets and shrink wrap to hold everything in place, so there is no need to tape anything in place before shipping.

Consider issues associated with particleboard furniture
Although we specialize in antiques and pianos, we are occasionally are asked to provide shipping for more modern particleboard furniture. Particleboard furniture is usually “flat-packed” during the original shipping and then assembled in the home. It is not designed to be moved as assembled furniture. As you may have noticed with your particleboard furniture, it often has to be partially re-assembled or have the sides adjusted even if it is moved only a few feet, as corners may begin to pull apart whenever it is lifted. To ensure safe delivery of particleboard furniture, we recommend that you disassemble it before shipping, so that we can properly flat-pack the pieces. If you cannot dissasemble it for shipping, we will do our absolute best to move your particleboard furniture safely, but you should be aware that there is an increased risk of damage and, as with any shipping and moving company, we cannot be responsible for the particleboard furniture if/when it falls apart during transport.

To be very blunt, you should know that there are other shipping companies who will tell you that they can move your particleboard furniture fully assembled with no problem, knowing full well that it will probably fall apart or be damaged and that they will not cover that damage. They do this because they care far more about "making the sale" than they do about your furniture. At Nationwide, our reputation and success is based on one thing - shipping items safely. We are not the fastest and may not always be the least expensive, but we truly strive to be the best. We would rather lose a client's business than ship furniture we know will be damaged. That is why we are doing our best to fully inform you about shipping particleboard furniture.